A person needs to be able to access sidewalks etc and those are government issues in most places. Installing a pool lift is way over the top. Disability brings with it limitations as to what a person can REASONABLY do.
My wife is disabled from Transverse Myleitus 26 years ago. It hit her at C-5 and C-6 incomplete quad. It's been motorized wheelchairs ever since. I'm disabled 17 years now. Only with my disablility I can walk. But things like loud store P.A. systems can trigger seizures. So should I have the right to demand Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, etc not make announcements and keep their stores quiet to accomidate my disability? I also walk with a cane now due to balance issues. I have enough common sense especially after four falls last year to not climb ladders anymore. Does that mean government should come clean the leaves off my roof now or force a landscaper to do so uncompensated?
ADA as applied to private businesses is an unfunded and Unconstitutional mandate. Some of its requirements can get quite expensive especially for Mom and Pop stores. We frequent a Mom and Pop gift shop on a regular basis. The owners go out of their way to bring my wife items she is looking for to give as gifts. Their store is in an old one story building with about four different floor levels on the ground floor. To adapt it and make it accessible would take most of their retail space. I do not think anyone especially government has the right to force a private business into upgrading to meet ADA.
. They are stuck in a quandry. If they want to expand in any way the codes will make them do such to make meaning the entire store ADA suitable. No part of government should have the authority to mandate this insanity into the private sector which is where the real issues and abuses are occuring.
Do I think the ADA should meddle in the affairs of private business? Heck no, I’m not for gov’t meddling. But I look at the ADA the same way I look at the codes department in my city. Should the codes department be able to tell me how and what to do to my house? Heck no, but it’s the law and they do.
We put on an addition to our home...and in order to get the permits, the codes department said the entire house had to come up to Miami Dade hurricane standards (we live in Florida.) That involved replacing every door and window in our home (not just the addition) and probably costs us an extra 20K than we would have spent to just put on the addition. Did we comply, of course, because it’s the law, and whether I believe the gov’t should be able to tell me how or what to do to my property, I have to obey the law.
I feel the same way about the hotels and the ADA requirements. Unfortunately, the ADA is law (passed and signed by GWB in 1990.) And just like with codes in municipalities, the requirements of the ADA are ever evolving, and their “tentacles” are invading more of the lives of individuals and businesses. If the ADA says they need to do it, they have to bite the bullet and do it just like we had to bite the bullet and pay much more than we had anticipated for our construction (as I pointed out in my post, the cost is minimal for the hotels after all the requirements were explained.)
Is it right to have the gov’t involved with one’s private property or private business...not in my book, but it is what it is.